


Blood Memory

by wellmet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 00:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19878856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellmet/pseuds/wellmet
Summary: In modern London 2 ancient beings meet.  Just a little kissing at the end.





	Blood Memory

**Author's Note:**

> In modern London 2 ancient beings meet.

BLOOD MEMORY 

Meretseger 2019  
John Watson leaned back in his seat and sipped at his wine. This late at night - or was it early in the morning, he couldn't tell his mind was still too busy - the Chinese restaurant Sherlock had brought him to was empty of customers apart from himself and his suddenly-best-friend. He took another sip of wine and allowed himself a small smile.

"Are you actually a vampire or do you just like to tease people with the possibility that you might be?"

Looking up from the food he'd been pushing around his plate but not eating Sherlock smiled that sly smile that irritated people but John just seemed to like. "Yes." When John didn't get annoyed as he'd expected he decided to add, "I am."

John didn't seem surprised he just nodded and deftly picked up a sliver of pork and ate it before asking, "how old are you?" He didn't look shocked or afraid and since Sherlock thought he knew why he answered without actually stating years …

"I was at the great folk moot with my father, who was a prince amongst his people, and my brothers and sisters when the messenger from Gaul announced that Gaius Julius Caesar had decreed that every Druid should be killed on sight."

John nodded and chewed and then said calmly, "I imagine that caused a lot of comment."

Sherlock who already liked his friend's calm way of taking in things nodded and sipped at his wine. "Of course it did. It died down a bit when the Chief Druid said that they had found a way of keeping their knowledge from dying." A slight lift of one hand for emphasis, "like everybody else I assumed they meant that our land would not become part of the Roman dominions." A small shrug, "we all know how that turned out.

"When the Chief Druid called me out of the crowd and said it would be me who saved the knowledge I just assumed he meant that I would undergo the triple sacrifice where land become water and water became land. I wasn't afraid, I knew that I would go to dwell with the gods and that if I saved the knowledge that the Druids kept I would be proud to be the one." *

"I had been married and widowed twice and had no children, though I had a quiver full of nieces and nephews so I had no worried about leaving my family and going away with the Druids.

"I was given things to drink that clouded my mind … I can only remember flashes of memories." Sherlock pushed his bowl aside and rested his elbows on the table in front of him and folded his fingers together. "My first memory is sitting in a shelter with an open front and looking out at the snow as if fell thick on the ground. I looked down and saw that I was naked, sitting on a sheep skin and watched as blood fell freely from my slashed wrists into a silver bowl." He looked up but there was nothing on John's face but interest. "Then I remember a hut, properly furnished and I was wearing good, warm clothes and I sat by a hearth burning wood. I felt a hunger that gnawed at my belly. A Druid came in with a young acolyte; the boy must have been drugged as he flopped in the man's arms. It must have been Winter or almost as the wind came in through the door and the trees were bare but for a few dead leaves He was laid across my lap and there was warmth and no more hunger.

"My next memory is being allowed outside into the fresh air, it was a mild day and the trees were loosing their leaves. I was cold, cold to the bone, even though I had good, warm tunic and hose on and I was given a heavy cloak." He looked over at his heavy overcoat and scarf as they lay over the back of a chair, remembering the heavy warmth and how he had chosen the Belstaff as it reminded him of that warmth. "They said I was now Winter and Death.

"I was given food to eat but I wasn't hungry for meat or bread but they insisted I eat just a little and gave me mead and beer which I didn't mind so much. I remember being told that I should eat and drink, even if only a little, as I would be noticed if I never ate and drank. My mind was sort of detached from my body and the memories are patchy. So I ate and drank but I never regained my fondness for food." Sherlock smiled, "though I have found that a good cup of tea … " He didn't need to finish John was a man who enjoyed a good cuppa as much as he did. 

"Then one at a time the Druids came and gave me something sweet but acrid to drink and then recited their knowledge to me. I asked why they didn't write down all they knew, Latin was known well enough in Gaul for them to have learnt it. The Chief Druid said that things written could be lost or read by those who should not read them. I said what if I could not remember the things they told me - I had no training in remembering more than a few verses from my favourite poets but they said that I would not remember what I heard but part of my mind would hold the words and when the time was right I would remember and tell the world what the Druids had known."

"Do you know when that will be or what will make you remember?" John asked.

Sherlock shook his head. "I don't even know which door in my mind palace they are behind." He had looked, many times, but there was no door that he could not unlock if he wanted to. He leant forward and asked, "and you, John Hamish Watson how long has it been since you came out from under your hill." He looked again and added, "this time."

John did look surprised at Sherlock's insight into his past. "Long enough to become a surgeon and soldier." He sipped at his wine and looked around the restaurant; the waiter was in the kitchen with the cook listening to a Chinese language film on the television and there were no other customers. He took his illegal pistol from the back of his jeans where he had stuck it after shooting the cabbie and laid it on the table. With a sweep of his left hand he ran his fingers over the dark grey metal and as he passed his hand over the weapon it grew until it was not a hand gun but a rifle, another pass of his hand and it shimmered and became a sword with a blade of dark, shiny metal with a hilt of carved bone with an amber finial.

Sherlock studied the sword and reached out and ran a hand down the blade, feeling with his fingertips the sharp edge and the cold metal.

"What about 'damned be to iron'?" it was phrase he had heard many times, even when he was still Human.

John smiled and shook his head. "The Humans seem to need to give me and my people a weakness. Perhaps to comfort themselves that they could always beat us. It comforted them so they ended up believing it." He touched the blade and the sword shrank back to a gun small enough for him to tuck away in his belt again. "It's made of meteoric iron and is very magical." His eyes mocked Sherlock a little. "If I chose I could cut off your head with a single blow and the words of your priests would die with you."

"Let's go home," Sherlock said. He swung his Belstaff around him like a cloak and folded his scarf around his neck. He had grown used to being always cold but being wrapped in wool did help a little.

John paid the bill and followed his friend out into the cold morning. He shivered a little, he had got used to the dry heat of the desert and it took a while for his body to get used to the cold again. They walked to Baker Street in silence and up the stairs to their flat. 

Sherlock took off his coat and scarf and sat down by the fire that was burning well and the room was warm; Mrs Hudson must have come up and lit it for them, knowing they would be cold when they finally got home. 

John stopped by the door undoing his coat slowly until Sherlock turned to look at him. He smiled and swung his coat out and it became a cloak of soft, dense wool the colour of new Spring leaves. He hung it up and turned so Sherlock could see his clothes. His tunic and hose were the colour of mature oak leaves, his boots the deep dark brown of rich soil, his belt shimmered like the wings of butterflies. He smiled and ran his left hand through his short blond hair. When he lowered his hand his hair was long, shimmering gold and silver down to his waist and about his brow there was a silver circlet studied with amber and moonstones. There was a glow about him that filled the room until even Sherlock was warm.

Sherlock stood, moving over to smile and touch a sun-kissed cheek. "My bringer of light," he said. He bent down a kissed lips that clung to his for a long moment before straightening again. "I am Death and Winter," he said. "But with you am not so cold."

AUTHOR'S NOTES  
* Bodies from the iron age found in England, Ireland and Scandinavia in peat bogs ((England's with typical humour has been named 'Pete Marsh')) seem to have been hit on the head, strangled and had their throats cut - the Celts like a lot of other cultures had a thing about 3 - and then sunk into bogs and marshes that have later become sources of peat. Most seem to be of high social status. Bogs and marshes are what anthropologists call 'liminal' - that is not quite one thing or the other, places where the spirit world broke through into ours. They were also favourite places for sacrifices of ritually 'killed' swords and knives. Green is the Fairy's colour. Wear it at your peril.


End file.
